Atari 512 ST computer miracle

[JJM 777]

An interesting and nearly incredible incident happened to me ten years ago.

I was writing a personal letter to a 30-year-old friend of mine, when suddenly my computer stopped responding to my keystrokes, and instead it kept repeating on the screen the words "I die, I die, I die, I die..." tens and tens of times, over and over again, until the whole screen was full of these words and nothing else. Half a minute later the screen went black, and the computer shut itself down. Frustrated of losing my unsaved text file, I stopped writing the letter, and never sent it.

A week later the person died of a heart attack, at the age of 30 years only.

A miracle here? Well, in some sensation-seeking flim-flam magazine the story would probably be published in the exact form as shown above, including only the facts presented above and omitting all the rest. But let me give now a bit more information about the incident, which will help you to calm down a bit.

The computer in question was an old Atari 512 ST, which had some inner technical damages that caused malfunctions. This "word-repeating" thing described above was nothing uncommon for the computer: it was a common phenomenon for the computer. Or in other words, should I have called a computer helpdesk, I would have told them: "There's something wrong with my computer. Every now and then when I'm using a word processor, it suddenly stops responding to keystrokes, and then it repeats the five or ten last typed letters on the screen for a while, and then the operating system crashes." The helpdesk people would have replied to me: "Well, bring it here and we will replace the motherboard, it will be fine then."

If there is a miracle in this story, the behaviour of the computer is not the miracle. The faulty action of the computer was -- and possibly still is today, if I fetch the computer from the attick -- an authentic phenomenon that could have been tested and reproduced over and over again with my old damaged Atari 512 computer.

The death of my friend was no miracle either. In the sensational story above I just "forgot" to mention that doctors had already long ago diagnosed the heart problems of the person, young as he was, and warned him not to eat too greasy food. He turned a deaf ear on the doctors, and ate whatever he wanted, and whatever the doctors had forbidden from him. So the fate of the person -- a heart attack -- was nothing unexpected. On the contrary, it was the very thing that the doctors had warned him about, should he fail to obey their advice.

Technically speaking, no "miracle" took place. The computer functioned exactly as it usually did -- and the heart attack was exactly what the doctors were expecting to happen to the young man. Yet there is a striking COINCIDENCE here, the timing of the events, the letter that was being written to the very person who then died, and the very improbable chance that when the computer decided to hang up once more (which it regularly did in this same manner), the six last letters in the keyboard buffer just happened to be "I die ", and these the computer kept repeating on the screen until it finally shut itself down (which all were regular symptoms of the faulty old computer).

While JREF foundation is hunting after "real" miracles, which involve "supernatural forces" and such, I doubt that any such events take place on earth. But it is these striking coincidences of otherwise natural and rationally explainable events that makes some people believe in... what should we call it?

Destiny? Fate? God?

[Rob Lister]

Originally posted by JohnJoeMittler
... what should we call it?

Destiny? Fate? God?

How about fabricated?

[Hand Bent Spoon]

I agree. We are pattern seeking creatures, and so much so that we insist life itself simply must have a meaning.

We're all a bunch of V'gers...

[JJM 777]

How about fabricated?

If I were to claim the JREF 1 million award, it would be reasonable for you to begin your inspection by demanding proof for all details of the story. Bringing witnesses to courtroom would be a bit boring, now that there's no money at stake.

The point is that life is full of unexpected events. Winning a lottery jackpot several times, or being struck by a lightning several times and surviving every time, is statistically extremely incredible, an outright "miracle". An yet it happens to some people. Someone MUST win the jackpot, it's a necessity.

When you hear stories about people who have been hit by lightning several times in their lives, or who have won several lottery jackpots, is your stance automatically that they have fabricated the stories?

There is no need for such opposition, since we are not dealing with irrational, "supernatural" claims. We are only dealing with rationally explainable, statistical peculiarities -- which CERTAINLY must exist in our global population of 6 billion people.

That makes 2,000,000,000,000 different daily human fates per year. I guess the odds are favourable for a couple of lighting-survivers and multi-jackpot winners, after all. As well as other kinds of "strange fates", such as the one discussed afore.

[Ceinwyn]

Originally posted by Rob Lister


How about fabricated? How about you read the actual post?

Sheesh.

edit to say: I enjoyed the original post, thanks JohnJoe.

[An Infinite Ocean]

There is one amazing thing about this story.... you had an Atari ST!? Dude, the Amiga was much better!

;)

[JJM 777]

I agree that this aspect of the story is incredible indeed, against all the odds. So it might have been a true miracle after all...

[JJM 777]

But if I had used an Amiga, it would have functioned properly, without crashing in these silly ways, and the whole story would have never taken place...

[MRC_Hans]

Originally posted by JohnJoeMittler
*sniiip* what should we call it?

Destiny? Fate? God? A random incidence. Simply that.

Millions of people are typing away on computers (of doing other mundane things) every day. Of course sometimes some strange coincidence will happen. However, nobody notices all the millions if times when NOTHING strange happens.

It is like the (putative) Lotto Big Winner's Club. In this club only people who have won at least 500.000$ can become members. If you interview the people here you will find that 100% have won big lotto prizes.

You are a member of the "Something Strange Happened On My Computer Club".

Hans

[JJM 777]

I am aware of the statistical lot that has fallen on me. But it's a good story. One must have something to tell his grandchildren.

(Hmmm... is THIS the greatest achievement that I will have to tell them? Good Lord!)

[Anders W. Bonde]

John Joe,

FWIW, we're also all potential (and actual victims) of confirmation bias. In your case: If your friend had not died, at least not shortly after your computer "died", you probably wouldn't have paid the computer "event" any attention other than something along the lines of "hmmm...that's a smart computer - it knows its going awol on me...".

Shortly after my aunt died, my cousin told me he'd had an experience indicating "that there's more between Heaven and Earth...": On the day she died (in the fall), he noticed a white butterfly fluttering by, and thought to himself: "That's my mother's soul - she just died". She had indeed just died, as confirmed shortly afterwards by a phone call from his father. But here's the rub: My aunt had been long suffering from terminal cancer in the pancreas - it was at that time just a question of hours or, at best, days, before she died. I told my cousin that he'd probably seen lots of white butterflies in the fall (they are not that unusual), but normally never paid attention to them. Emotionally charged as he was by his mother's terminal illness and impending death, he noticed on this occation and read his culturally "programmed" reaction into the observation.

[Tez]

Heres a freaky coincidence that happened to me this morning.

A good friend owes me 340 punds. This morning she came over to repay me some of it. She could only get 300 pounds out of the cash machine, and so she decides to pay me 240. She counts it out and hands it to me, and I say "so this is 240 not 340 right?", to which she affirms.

I then look at the top bill of those she counted out - it has "340" written on it, which is crossed out and below that is written "240". Neither of us wrote this, just a coincidence...

[JPK]

Originally posted by An Infinite Ocean
There is one amazing thing about this story.... you had an Atari ST!? Dude, the Amiga was much better!

;)

How dare you... I have several Atari machines and they all function flawlessly. I also have a Amiga that I tend not to use ever, mainly because I have always used Ataris. My Atari Falcon blows away the Amiga.

:)

OK sorry for this post. I have been away from the forum for a week on vacation in the mountains away from the computer and the first thread I read attacks my first computer. OK maybe not my first. I had an Atari 400 and a Timex Sinclair that I built. I actully own every Atari machine ever built (except for a secret VR helmet they had for the Jaguar that I can't get my hands on.) Now that's far more amazing then thi guys story about the lag time in a word prossessor program like Atari Writer that didn't display key strokes while it was saving what you were typing.
Just a guess having spent many years using those old machines building BBS's (anyone remember them?). The glory days of 300 baud. It was pretty annoying typing and waiting for the auto-save feature to let you type again in the older word prossesors.

JPK
ps please be kind to Atari..... :)

[Darat]

Originally posted by JPK


How dare you... I have several Atari machines and they all function flawlessly. I also have a Amiga that I tend not to use ever, mainly because I have always used Ataris. My Atari Falcon blows away the Amiga.

:)

OK sorry for this post. I have been away from the forum for a week on vacation in the mountains away from the computer and the first thread I read attacks my first computer. OK maybe not my first. I had an Atari 400 and a Timex Sinclair that I built. ...snip...


ps please be kind to Atari..... :)

Found a long lost twin brother, snap on the Atari - not quite owned all of them but pretty close...

[JJM 777]

If your friend had not died, at least not shortly after your computer "died", you probably wouldn't have paid the computer "event" any attention

It is true that I simply shut down the machine, shrugged my shoulders, and went to eat a couple of sandwiches. The issue was resuscitated and given a "meaning" only a week later, when the person died to whom I had been writing the letter.

By the way, whenever any major catastrophy happens in the world, the local charismatic Christians publish in their magazines articles of how some of them "felt an urging need to pray the night before", and so on...

The charismatic Times Square Church of Manhattan published such stories after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and several leading Finnish charismatic Christians reported that they had been "awakened by God to pray in the night" when a passenger ferry sank off the coast of Finland and took 200 people into the bottom of sea.

These claims are never made BEFOREHAND. They are always "remembered" only afterwards...

[tracer]

Originally posted by JohnJoeMittler
But if I had used an Amiga, it would have functioned properly, without crashing in these silly ways,
You've obviously never used AmigaDOS 1.0.

[Mr Manifesto]

Originally posted by An Infinite Ocean
There is one amazing thing about this story.... you had an Atari ST!? Dude, the Amiga was much better!

;)

Crap! I had a 512 and it was brilliant. Most fun I had with my clothes on. That was after I had my XL of course.

[Darat]

Originally posted by Mr Manifesto


Crap! I had a 512 and it was brilliant. Most fun I had with my clothes on. That was after I had my XL of course.

Yep and how many years later was a "as you type" spell checker considered revolutionary in the PC word? "1st Word" for the ST, lovely piece of software and it fitted on a single floppy!

[JJM 777]

lovely piece of software and it fitted on a single floppy!

That's yet another miracle. So possibly the real prophet here is Jack Tramiel, the boss of Atari corporation?

[wittgenst3in]

Good story John.

Like a lot of these things I can see that I would possibly have fallen for something similar had I not been 'awakened' by people like Carl Sagan.

But let's have a look at the implications behind the story if it were circulated as a ledgend. Message displays on pc, shuts down, message comes true. Hmm....

My l33t basic skills are a little rusty but I'll give it a go:

10 For n=1 to 10000
20 Print "Wittgenst3in wins a million dollars and a talking duck"
30 next n
40 poweroff

Can't wait to see what happens!:D

I remember seeing a tv special that (amongst other things) showed a guy who has been struck by lightning, like a dozen times (memory fuzzy for exact number), turns out he works for the US forestry service and frequently hangs around outside in storms!

[Ed]

Originally posted by JohnJoeMittler


That's yet another miracle. So possibly the real prophet here is Jack Tramiel, the boss of Atari corporation?

You sir, have given up fame and fortune. Then again, I am told by unimpeachable sources that the Finns are an unsteady lot, much given to strong spirits and the like......

[JJM 777]

10 For n=1 to 10000
20 Print "Wittgenst3in wins a million dollars and a talking duck"
30 next n
40 poweroff

Can't wait to see what happens!
We need "paranormal" computer viruses, which play this kind of hoaxes on people.

I can already see the headlines:
"UFO seen on computer screen by an elder Texas couple."
"Prophet Moses appeared to three people on MacIntosh screen."
"Photo of James Randi appears from nowhere, elder lady gets a heart attack."

[An Infinite Ocean]

Honestly, you Atari geeks! Twenty years after the ST was launched, it's time to let go. The ST was a rubbish Amiga clone with none of the hardware capabilities.

The best proof of Amiga superiority is the fact that most of the big demo parties still have categories for the Amiga. They're bloody good, too.

I think I've got an ST up in the loft. Never used it.

Finally: Love how lots of people have totally failed to see the point of JohnJoeMittler's post. Do people here speed-read or something? The guy is a skeptic, you skeptidiots!

[tracer]

Originally posted by wittgenst3in
My l33t basic skills are a little rusty
"l33t BASIC" is an oxymoron. It's like saying "l33t LOGO" or "l33t Pilot".

[Powa]

Originally posted by JohnJoeMittler
But if I had used an Amiga, it would have functioned properly, without crashing in these silly ways, and the whole story would have never taken place...
Hm... Can you say "Guru meditation"?

[wittgenst3in]

Originally posted by tracer

"l33t BASIC" is an oxymoron. It's like saying "l33t LOGO" or "l33t Pilot".


Using l33t to describe basic nowadays is silly, but these were the days when everything ran on basic, and simple code modifications would lead to massive run-time differences.

I remember my uncle telling me how he re-wrote the backup software for a computer he was working on. The original guys had the backup writing to the harddrive in a bitwise manner (as opposed to bytewise). He changed it to read a byte, write a byte and the thing went almost 8 times faster.

I call that l33t. :p


P.s. When doing microcontrollers I took a enourmous amount of pride in showing my lecturer that my program written in assembler was not only small, but the smallest possible to do the same task. These things can be useful if you only have 2k of code space in your device.

[TheBoyPaj]

True. Unlike Visual Basic where a program to print "hello" takes up nearly two megs!

[wittgenst3in]

Originally posted by TheBoyPaj
True. Unlike Visual Basic where a program to print "hello" takes up nearly two megs!

Oh man, I'd nearly forgotten about that.

Not just visual basic either, I remember the first lecture I had on C++ when I saw the 15 or so files that Microsoft C++ compiler created, and then found they were in total over a meg. Jees.